Okay here is what was written in the book The Making of King Kong. Since the book was written by Orville Goldner (along with author George Turner) I tend to believe what is written considering Goldner was there and worked on King Kong as a part of O'Briens crew. None of us were there working on the film or were there on the sets so I tend to believe what Goldner has to say rather than theories of guys in ape suits and gorillas full of sawdust.

On the climb up (Page 167)

Buzz Gibson animated Kong's climb up the Empire State Building, wiring the model into position with each step of the ascent up a ladder of dowels. Kong was positioned on the side of the real edifice in two scenes and on a miniature building in others by means of the blue-backing process.

On the fall down (pages 175 and 179)

It was decided to use a more conventional view in which a loosely jointed dummy would plunge down the profile of the building. Because the scale model of a 102 storey building was necessarily small, the problem of camera speed appeared insuperable. Sheppird's calculations indicated that the proper degree of slow motion required to make the fall appear sufficiently ponderous was beyond the capability of the high speed cameras being produced at that time.
A special mounting was built to hold a Bell and Howell camera and a drive motor that were connected by a rubber hose. The plan was for the rubber hose to shear off incase the camera jammed. The set was flooded with blinding light, which was necessary to get an exposure at an abnormaly high shutter speed. The motor was revved to its maximum possibility, exposing the frames of film at more than eight times the normal speed. The camera screamed as though in agony as the techinicans wondered if it might be torn apart under the unnatural stresses to which it was being subjected. The dummy toppled from its perch and the film stuck. The rubber hose failed to shear and before switches could be thrown, the film accordioned in all the gates. Several camera gates were sprung and the film was crammed in so tightly that the cameraman had to cut it out of the mechanism bit by bit with a penknife. Several days later the camera was again ready for operation, and after a few tests, the scene was successfully filmed.


The Catch of the Day!